1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to digital file navigation. More specifically, one or more embodiments of the present disclosure relate to systems and methods that generate icons to assist in navigation of digital documents.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Individuals increasingly use computing devices for a growing variety of daily tasks. For example, businesses, governments, and individuals utilize personal computers, smartphones, and laptops for tasks ranging from blogging to working; web-surfing to accounting; and entertaining to exercising. Indeed, there are very few aspects of individual life that remain untouched by digital devices.
With this increased proliferation of computing devices has come a corresponding increase in electronic documents. Indeed, individuals commonly create and access electronic documents on a daily basis, resulting in ever-expanding repositories of digital information. For example, it is not uncommon for individual users to have folders containing hundreds (if not thousands) of electronic documents, such as word processing files, images, presentations, or spreadsheets.
Unlike real-world documents, digital documents stored in a computing device have no tangible physical presence that a user can utilize to search for and identify particular documents. Indeed, because many users do not have the time (or know-how) to systematically name and organize digital files, users often expend significant efforts searching for digital documents within their own digital files. Accordingly, there is an increasing demand for improved systems and methods to navigate, locate, and identify electronic documents.
Some common systems seek to address the difficulty of navigating electronic documents by allowing users to perform digital queries. For example, some common systems allow a user to run a search based on a title of a document or a document type. Although such systems can assist in finding a document, users frequently express frustration with the time required by such systems and the frustration associated with sorting through results. Moreover, because such systems require a user to manually enter information regarding a digital document, users frequently experience frustration when they lack sufficient information regarding the document for purposes of running an effective search (e.g., a user may forgot the name of a particular document).
Other common systems exist that display information about digital documents that a user can navigate to locate a particular document. For instance, some common systems provide icons representing documents of a particular format (e.g., an icon for all PDF files) that a user can review. Users often express frustration with the time and effort required to search through lists of icons reflecting document formats, particularly where a digital folder contains numerous documents. Indeed, in file repositories containing thousands of documents of a single type, systems that display formatting icons often fail to provide users with an efficient way to identify pertinent documents.
These and other problems exist with regard to navigating digital files using conventional systems and methods.